Shell resumes crude oil export operations at Bonny Terminal

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on Wednesday announced the resumption of oil exports from the Bonny crude oil export terminal.

The resumption follows the lifting of force majeure on crude oil exports at the facility.

Force majeure is a provision that relieves the parties from performing their contractual obligations when certain circumstances beyond their control arise.

The SPDC had in March 2022 declared a force majeure on the Bonny Light oil export programme beginning from 3 March, citing a decline in flows to the export terminal.

The terminal, situated on Bonny Island, 48 kilometres southeast of Port Harcourt, is the biggest in Africa with a capacity to process and export 1.25 million barrels per day.

The SPDC’s media relations manager, Abimbola Essien-Nelson, in a statement said the force majeure was lifted on Wednesday, 15 March.

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“The force majeure was declared on March 3, 2022, following a significant decline in crude receipts at the Bonny Oil and Gas Terminal,” Mrs Essien-Nelson said in the statement posted on the company’s website.

In recent years, Nigeria has recorded a surge in pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft incidents in its oil-producing region, a development that worsened the nation’s revenue challenge.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari, had in April last year disclosed that Nigeria lost $4 billion to oil theft at the rate of 200,000 barrels per day in 2021.

He said the country already lost $1.5 billion so far in 2022 because pipeline vandalism has escalated. Mr Kyari said the country was losing 95 per cent of oil production to oil thieves at Bonny Terminal, Rivers State.

Nigeria’s crude oil production rose in January as the country continues to recover from a heavily disrupted crude sector plagued by oil theft.